The Truth About Churn: Getting Dumped By Your Customer

This valentine’s day, our thoughts go out to all of those failed relationships. Everything always seems to start so right, from first date to honeymoon, you always think that this one’s the one, the one customer that will reciprocate all of the care and attention you’ve given them by becoming a forceful advocate.

And then.

Then. They churn.

For our valentine's day (and 100th) edition of the SaaS tattler, we’re looking at churn straight in the eyes. Hope this helps you get over your last customer heartbreak, and you can turn that churn rate - and frown, honestly - upside down.

First things first, what are we even talking about? In this very instructional post, Nils Vinje from Glide Consulting gives you a full rundown: basic churn, discretionary churn, MRR churn, negative churn, and all the things in between. Once you’ve got that straight, you can start thinking about 0% churn, and what that means.

If a customer can’t churn this month, should they be counted towards your churn rate?

Lincoln Murphy dives right into the topic of churn, and what an acceptable churn rate should be, by asking this questions “Is 5% a good monthly SaaS Churn Rate?” Spoiler alert, it’s not. Great read for anyone looking for a better understanding of Churn and looking to adjust their trajectory in that area.

What this really means is that with 5% MONTHLY churn, the CEO who said “it’s fine” is running a company with a 46% annual churn rate!

Enough with the theoretical stuff, in this post, Clement Vouillon analyses 4 SaaS benchmarks to see what they say about real churn figures. If you’re looking for real-life examples and concrete numbers, you might want to take a look.

Ok, this one isn’t really about churn, but it’s about break-ups. Things don’t always go as planned and sometimes your customer can become a bad fit for you, and your company. In this post, Kristen Hayer helps you prepare for the dreadful phone call (no, texts and emails are not appropriate ways to dump your customer).

Do this in person or over the phone, be polite but clear, and be prepared to discuss next steps.

Happy valentine’s day to all of you and yours. We’re not sure if dumping someone on valentine’s day is as rude in business as it is in real life, but we for sure hope it won’t happen to you!

About the Author

Mathilde is a Digital Marketing Analyst at Amity. After moving from France to complete a degree in Political Science from McGill University, she decided to settle in Toronto in order to pursue her passion for Marketing and Tech.